Greetings,

303 Bass has been established as the industry standard in Trance music, especially PsyTrance. The reason for this is because it's higher frequencies (or tones) allows a bassline to cut through a mix at higher BPM's, where slower resonating bass frequencies "don't cut it". However, hearing this familiar bass sound over and over again from various artists becomes tiring and redundant. But it doesn't have to be this way. The answer lies in simply changing the waveform with different tracks, the 303 utilizes the Saw waveform, however, simply changing to a Square waveform for example with an alternative bass VSTi, yet within the same frequency range, would help break this production monotony.

Thank you for any suggestions or insights you may have concerning this.

You could always just use a different synth and stick 2 fingers to the norm?

im with yellowfever!

Exactly yellowfever. I only hope that other artists will take this suggestion to heart as well. Honestly, if I hear one more 303 bassline I think I'm gonna hurl!

If songs sound "tiring and redundant", the problem lies with the composition rather than the choice of timbre, no?

I feel the same way about primitive ghetto music, but people are still going to make that... just do what you like and forget about the rest.

The basic saw wave bass line might have be done to death, but more common in psy trance is (or was) the combination of Cubase VB-1 and Quadrafuzz. AFAIK the TB-303 was never used much at all, particularly now as it's a relatively rare and very expensive synth.

Not sure where this misconception comes from

(IMO) Better, more interesting results can be obtained using (say) a low square wave mixed with other waveforms and samples of real bass instruments, or FM synthesis techniques. There is a lot of generic psy though, so finding the good artists and tracks that don't follow the formula is not easy, and there is a lot of really, really badly produced psy

Peace,
Andy.

Why don't you just drop more x and mind your own business...

Good point. The quality of the composition certainly makes a difference. But even so, if you were to listen to a range of PsyTrance musicians who were all using the same 303 bass, or any other instrument for that matter, it does at some point become redundant anyway.

What I am suggesting is not the elimination of the use of the 303 bass, but rather that artists implement other basses in their work as well.

ah, you misunderstood...I am not presenting an argument toward the choice of musical genre here, but rather the overuse of certain instruments.

For me it's like complaining because you always hear pianos in classical music & guitars in rocks tunes. Each genre have it's stample sound.

this thread is a bit pointless: 303s were already played-out and boring as hell 15 or so years ago and it hasnt stopped ppl from rinsing them endlessly since.

and i'm speaking as a die-hard 303 fan here: the original acid house was amazing. however, from a listeners pov, all else to use 303 in the same way since has been a complete waste of time.

not likely to stop anytime soon either. even with an orchestrated campaign of anti-303 KVR threads

No, I understood what you meant perfectly.

Anyway, I got sick of 303 years ago. I don't have or use any of the emulations, but if anything came up where I wanted the "303 sound" you can do it with pretty much any synth.
Last edited by djanthonyw on Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi Andy. I think you mean "Steinberg VB-1 (Virtual Bass 1)" Basically you are reiterating what I had already suggested, that there are alternative bass methods. And again, once you have determined the frequency range, then you only need to change the waveform.

I believe that I had already stated that in the original post...